


Future Results and Past Performance

by Nidor_and_Petrichor



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Desert Bluffs, F/M, Gen, M/M, Madcap Theories About How it All Fits Together, Related Vignettes, Spoilers up through episode 36, Strexcorp, The Hole in the Vacant Lot Out Back of the Ralph's, The Museum of Forbidden Technology, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-30
Updated: 2013-12-30
Packaged: 2018-01-06 19:22:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1110583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nidor_and_Petrichor/pseuds/Nidor_and_Petrichor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Time doesn't work normally in Night Vale, much to the advantage of Man in the Tan Jacket and The Traveler with the handsome, but terrible, beard.</p>
<p>Perhaps future results can have even less to do with past performance than anticipated.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Future Results and Past Performance

  
_The present tense of regret is indecision.  
_ _Regret is an attempt to avoid what has already happened._  


 

**ii. Night Vale Community Radio Special Update – 1988**

“And now, an update on The Incident which occurred earlier this evening in Desert Bluffs.

“As you may know, citizens, Desert Bluffs is must like our own beloved hamlet, except that is a barren and desolate wasteland of humanity, a desperate and sad attempt to replicate the blissful oasis that is Night Vale, but through attempts at technological advancement rather than good old fashioned fear and government oppression. And it seems, their excesses and callous disregard for those most basic emotions of terror and desperation have at last driven them into the waiting arms of catastrophe.

“This evening, chaos reigned as the Desert Bluffs Controlling Shareholder – the newly incorporated Strex Corporation – chose to demonstrate their new line of mechanic home solutions to an anticipatory audience comprised of the majority of city residents.

“The Desert Bluffs Cacti Marching Band was on hand to mark the occasion.

“The Desert Bluffs Cacti Marching Band no longer has hands with which to mark occasions.

“The Desert Bluffs Cacti Marching Band is no longer.

“Strex Corporation issued a statement saying, 'Oops!' followed shortly thereafter by another saying, 'Don't worry, we'll definitely clean this up, we promise,' and a third, and presumably final, statement stating, 'This is what happens when you defy the future, when you question our mechanical overlords. Submit, submit now and be spared the mounting horrors. Submit cheerfully, and survive.'

“The Desert Bluffs Community College has begun raising funds to replace the ruined band uniforms, now unwearable due to extensive fire damage and blood stains. Contributions can be made by wishing hard enough that things weren't so bleak, and would start looking up soon.

“The Night Vale City Council would like to take this opportunity to remind citizens that this, _this_ is why we can't have nice things. Also, why all computers, pocket calculators and other, similar devices were banned two years ago, owing to prophecy. 

“The fine for owning such an item is punishable by banishment, to Desert Bluffs.” 

 

**v. The Palmer House – 1995**

Cecil is 15 years old. He is young, he is uncertain, he is full of promise and excitement and pride. He believes that all people deserve to die, and that he will one day be the host of his very own evening broadcast on Night Vale Community Radio. He is firm of conviction and strong of will. He is holding a tape recorder and admitting these things into the ether, to be heard by nobody.

There is a strange movement at the edge of his vision, something hard to see. There is buzzing and static. There is confusion and darkness and a staggering lack of oxygen, the air around him rarefied and distant from his lungs. There is something, something behind him, around him, something beside him, inside him–

There is something–

Something– 

There is nothing. And that nothing is followed by an infinite series of nothings from which he will never recover.

His body is not found for four days. His mother and his brother do not attend the funeral; they are nowhere to be found. His best friend plants a flower on his grave, but it is unlikely to survive out in the harsh desert sun.

 

**vi. Somewhere in the Desert Outside of Night Vale – 1991**

“Hey,” Cecil calls, “Come look at this!”  


“What is it?” Earl asks, standing and stretching his limbs.

“I'm not sure, but it's awfully neat!”

Earl groans and picks his way across the dunes to where his best friend is brushing off a large metal plate deep in the sand. It is hard to tell precisely how big it is, or how far under their feet it extends.

“Ugh, Cecil, it's not _neat_ – we're not stuck in the '50s. Well, at least, not this week, I don't think,” he adds thoughtfully. “If anything, it's... rad. Or awesome. Or _cool_. But definitely, definitely not _neat_.”

“Well, look at the _cool_ thing I found, then,” Cecil replies, obligingly. Earl had always been rather more concerned with trying to fit in, particularly now that they were entering junior high. Cecil couldn't say that he quite understood it, but he wasn't particularly bothered by it, either.

Cecil's fingers brush an imperfection in the smooth surface, a hairline separation in the plate. “Look! I think there might be a door in it!”

“A door to where? More sand? That seems a bit useless.”

“Help me clear it off and we'll find out.”

Earl considers for a moment before dropping beside his friend to help. Trying to open a mysterious and hidden hole in the middle of the Sand Wastes was probably not the best idea either of them had ever had, but they were both scouts, First Class, and more than capable of dealing with whatever might be inside. In any case, he considered, they'd certainly had worse ideas.

The metal plate was several inches below the surface and the sand covering it was strangely chilly in the hot afternoon sun. It must have been there for ages to have been buried so completely. They followed the lines of the crack, eventually uncovering a rectangular outline that did, in fact, appear to be some kind of door. Unfortunately, there was no handle, no lever, no discernible way to enter through it.

There was, however, a small, thin, sand-burnished plaque welded to it. There was no way to tell what it had once said, now that the enamel was completely stripped away, but the embossing of a skull and crossed femurs made it fairly clear that it had been a warning of some kind. The emblem was accompanied by a string of numbers and letters and the words “by order of the United States Army”.

“Do you think this could earn us our Uncovering Government Conspiracies badge?” Earl asks, his eyes lit with excitement. “I mean, even if we can't open it, we did literally uncover it, right?”

“Totally,” said Cecil, returning the grin. “That's way better than the Finding Water in the Desert badge any day.”

Earl thinks for a moment. If they walk away from the spot, it is likely that it would be lost in the endless dunes, or, worse, claimed as a discovery by another scout. They couldn't split up though, not if they valued their continued lives, which they did, usually.

“Let's see if we can get one of the black helicopters to confirm it for us,” he says. “Your semaphore is better than mine; I'll send up a flare and you wave them down, how does that sound?” 

“ _Cool_ ,” Cecil replies, already pulling out his flags.

 

**xi. Oak Trail, Night Vale – 2012**

There is a refrigerator standing on the side of the gravel road, out near the edge of town. A man in a tan jacket stands next to it. He is calm. He is composed. He carries with him a deerskin briefcase. He skinned the deer himself. Deer are dangerous and horrific animals. This man is not to be trifled with.

The refrigerator is standing, not doing much of anything. It is night time, and the road is lonely. A few motorists drive by, on their way into or out of town. Those on their way in appear more worried than those on their way out; many of them do not know where they are going. Many of them will never know where they are going.

The man checks his watch, which is on his wrist, which is attached to his hand. His fingers are nimble and sure. He uses them to wind his watch. He must keep track of the time, especially here, in Night Vale, where the time is so slippery.

He opens the briefcase and pulls out a bottle of lighter fluid. A cloud of flies swarms up around him, twines about his arm in a balletic embrace, and then settles, once more, into the case.

With slow, practiced movements, he douses the plastic-and-metal box beside him. He empties the bottle completely before placing it atop the freezer compartment.

He pulls a pack of cigarettes from his inside jacket pocket. He does not smoke often, but there are special occasions that warrant it. And often is a relative term, after all.

With a flick of those nimble fingers, he clicks the wheel of his lighter and holds it to the refrigerator. Thick, ropy flames and billowing clouds of smoke immediately engulf it. He does not step back, reaching forward instead, to light the tip of his cigarette off of the great fire beside him.

The skin of the kitchen appliance crackles and buckles, and a lone, forgotten magnet drops to the gravel shoulder of the road, no longer able to cling to the surface that had supported it.

Weeks later, Martin McCaffery, TSA employee and perennial Pictionary last-pick, will draw a sketch of a refrigerator. He will not have a memory of doing so, nor will he be able to identify his own hand in the result. He will depict a long-limbed, impossibly-stretched figure, shaded deeply black by his ballpoint pen, crawling from within it. He will not know what it means, or that Cecil Palmer will mention it, in passing, on his radio broadcast, or that it will be heard of by a man displaced from his home, from somewhere deep in the navel of the world where he longs to return, some time not in the now but of the soon.

 

**xiv. The Hole in the Vacant Lot Out Back of the Ralph's, Night Vale – 2013**

A stranger appeared in town.

A stranger with a foreign face and a handsome, but terrible, beard.

A stranger disappeared from town.

As is often the case with this stranger, he was not remembered, but he was also not forgotten. Not completely.

He seems to no longer exist – or to have no longer existed – or to never exist in the future, perhaps – tenses are difficult when it comes to describing his state of being. Whether he exists or not at any given point is dependent not only on the point, but which of the many points of that point that point is. Tenses are difficult.

For most intents and purposes, though, for most of Night Vale, he is gone.

For the hooded figures who have dragged him here, here to the seemingly endless hole behind the grocery store, however, he is only just beginning. 

They have much work to do to keep Night Vale secure.

 

**viii. Old Woman Josie's Place Out by The Car Lot, Night Vale – 2012**

When the angels appear, they do not appear from heaven. They do not approach her house from the road, seeking to offer assistance. When the angels appear, they walk from her kitchen and onto her porch, where she is tottering on a step stool, trying to replace a lightbulb.

They angels are enormous – tall and stretched looking – and luminous with a dark light. They are also smiling, always smiling.

“Are you going to stand there smirking like idiots, or are you going to help me change this lightbulb?” Josie demands, look up at them. Even on the stool they are taller than she is.

They all shuffle guiltily until one – the darkest and most luminescent of all – steps forward with a polite bow, and magnanimously takes the bulb from her hand, screwing it into the empty socket above her head.

“Thank you,” she says, primly. “Now, I suppose you'll be staying for lemonade.”

They turn to look at each other and shrug their impossibly thin, elongated shoulders.

“You must be Erika, Erika and Erika,” the tiny woman says, walking briskly inside, only to find her refrigerator door open. “If you're here, you're going to be treated like family. So close the damn fridge when you open it, no snacking on anything but leftovers without asking first and,” she whirls around, lightning fast and accusatory, “you had better wipe your feet when you come inside.”

She putters about, ignoring the confused and helpless looks that are passing above her head.

“Now, you all sit down at the table and we'll play a hand of bridge.” 

The angels shrug once more and do as they are told.

 

**ix. Route 800, Several Miles from Night Vale – 2012**

Data is most significant when it either follows or fails to follow a discernible pattern, when it either confirms or negates an occurrence or phenomenon. These blips of information are important: they may indicate the presence or absence of a previously overlooked piece of the puzzle that is being assembled. But only if they are statistically significant and/or reproducible. There are always glitches, after all – errors caused by incorrect inputs, not enough sleep, leaving a sample uncovered or unrefrigerated for too long.

Carlos has always been drawn to these small glitches, these negations of systems, the breaking of order and tradition. He is fascinated by the statistical outliers in series of otherwise orderly rules, and what causes them. Human error, mostly, sure, and that's interesting in and of itself. But he has found patterns in these lack of patterns, and these glitches, when conglomerated, create a structure in and of themselves, all of which point to a place in the southwestern American desert known as Night Vale.

He jokes about this place sometimes, a mythical land in the middle of nowhere, as fantastical as Middle Earth or Hogwarts or Westeros and as unfathomable as the Mariana Trench or the dark recesses beyond the spiraling galactic arm we call home.

He is uncertain precisely how it goes from a punchline, used against him when he is being whimsical in his scientific methodologies and meanings, to a reality. It may have something to do with a Fourth of July party, perhaps, or maybe a sketchy seafood buffet? He's not certain; perhaps he was drunk at the time. He thinks somebody – a man – was talking to him, suggesting he apply for research funding, suggesting he seek out this incomprehensible town, insinuating that perhaps there were strings that could be pulled, that this dream could be made a reality.

The process is blurry in his mind, but the result is clear. He flicks on the right blinker of his sporty little hybrid, a new purchase for the long drive, much of which is barren of gas stations. Prices will probably be higher, out here in the middle of nowhere, after all. 

He passes a highway sign bearing the legend, “NIGHT VALE, 2 MILES” and merges into the turn lane.

 

**xix. Somewhere in the Desert Outside of Night Vale – 2013**

The statue is magnificent. It is cast in bronze and hyacinth, resplendent and gloriously detailed. The Apache Tracker looks noble, and somewhat affronted, and ever so slightly guilty, his features recognizable but his race indeterminate.

Charlotte McIver, professor of sculpture at Night Vale Community College, has slaved away on this work for weeks, trying to capture the true essence of what it means to be a heroic, racist asshole. She believes she has succeeded, and based on the praise lavished on her by colleges and passing students, it seems that others agree.

She crates the statue in pieces, to be assembled when it reaches its final destination, and has the maintenance crew help her load it into the back of the truck to take to City Hall. She's met at a loading dock, signs a delivery slip, non-disclosure agreement and several pieces of paper in long-dead and never-lived languages.

She returns home and burns the negatives and slides of the piece, destorys the remaining casts, the scale busts and all of her sketches for the project. She sets fire to the sculpture studio, but is sure to let the fire department and senior studio students know ahead of time. All according to protocol.

The statue is taken, still in pieces, to the desert. The sand here is all smoothed over, identical in every direction, leveled and re-leveled by sandstorms and soft night breezes. Somewhere, though, close by is a hole, covered with a board, where something was once dug up, many years ago, just waiting to be replaced by a different sort of contraband.

The driver lifts the hydraulics on the bed of the truck, tipping the statue, piecemeal, into the newly-uncovered hole, and a team of transients, paid with promises and liquor, begin to shovel sand on top of it.

The evidence will disappear within a few short days or hours, as the sand settles once more into a perfect, even sheet, covering countless holes and machines and statues and secrets in the otherwise-barren desert.

 

**iii. Desert Bluffs Community College – 1987**

The community college marching band is a strange idiosyncrasy of the town Desert Bluffs: it has operated in precisely the same fashion for as long as it has existed. The instruments are mostly ancient hand-me-downs, polished and patched and well-worn by generations of tubaists and accordionists and implausible-Belgian-marimba players. Their uniforms have changed little from the Civil War – the Civil War of 1923, that is – and even the majority of their songs and formations are at least forty years old.

In a city where progress is made purely for the sake of progress, the Desert Bluffs Cactus Marching Band is a charming regression to simpler times. This is, among other things, why so many of the members feel such a deep affection for it, but even more especially in the case of their drum major, Harry Współcześnie.

Harry is a man of simple tastes and pleasures, a young man, but of the old world. He is filled with many things: his lungs are filled with air, his heart is filled with bravado, his mind is full of music, his face is full of whiskers, his stein is full of beer and his spirit is full of municipal pride. He is as charming as he is well-intentioned, and as well-intentioned as he is self-assured.

He, too, is filled with a lingering dread at what is becoming of his town. He is fearful of the machines that have begun to infiltrate their lives, “increasing productivity” and “improving quality of life”. Harry is of the opinion that his life is already of a quality unmatched by most, rich and full, although perhaps in want only of a beautiful woman. It is anathema that some corporation knows him, knows his city, better than he himself does. He knows what is best, and he will staunchly defend it to his dying breath – so he proclaims often and loudly, particularly in public and after several drinks. 

It is on one of these nights, these loud and proclamatory nights, that he meets a man. The man is... he has eyes and hands and legs. He has a briefcase, yes, a briefcase. And a jacket. And... features, of some kind. Harry must have been drunk, because it is hard to remember the man, but that is no matter. He remembers what the man said; or, perhaps not so much said as what he _meant._

 

**x. Museum of Forbidden Technology Press Release – 2012, Or Whenever. Does it Even Matter?**

The Museum of Forbidden Technologies is pleased to announce several ~~new~~ ~~recent~~ ~~unprecedented~~ additions to its collection, including a number of time machines, donated by an anonymous benefactor. Anonymous or, at least, we've forgotten who it was that delivered them and have no way of confirming whether he was even real. Where did he come from? And when? 

These devices, completely legal under ~~new~~ ~~recent~~ ~~unprecedented~~ Night Vale time travel statutes are never-the-less to be kept locked away and covered, to be seen and used by no one. There is no knowing what might happen if they were to fall into the wrong hands, after all, especially since we don't even know who gave them to us, or for what purpose. We're not saying it was aliens, or Russians, but, y'know, it might be. It might be Russian aliens. You can't be sure. We will be sure for you. Shhh, don't fuss. The Museum of Forbidden Technologies will take care of everything, don't you worry. We know what's best for you, and what's best is to ignore technological progress at all cost. Just... lay back. Lay back and enjoy the tickle of electricity in your fore-frontal lobe. We know what's best for you.

 

**vii. The Harlan House – 1993**

The Earthquake Dust Fire of '83 all but decimated the population of Night Vale, wiping out nearly ninety percent of the town over the course of three intense, flame-filled days. High birth rates, an increased number of mysteriously rerouted transit, and the occasional temporal rift had rebuilt the population to sustainable levels, but the fire had left a lasting impact on the general census of the area.

Earl's earliest fully-formed memory, or so he claimed, was of an officer of the Sheriff's Secret Police discovering him in the smoldering remains of his family's house, and of his family. The officer had unceremoniously deposited him at the entrance to his father's brother's concrete bunker with an ominous green envelope, no shoes and the instruction to wait for either certain death due to exposure or somebody to come find him.

These days, he lived in a cozy adobe-walled ranch house with his uncle and two cousins, who had escaped the burning sky and sand many years before by sealing themselves in their living prison of cement and stone and exited after the destruction ended, only to find a small, shoeless child sitting .

Soft sounds echoed in from the street as Uncle Milton drove off into the scrublands on some unspecified business. He would be out for several hours, before his return was heralded by the sputtering of his pickup's engine and the fourteen door locks being opened and then re-engaged. Some time even later the twins would likely reappear, hanging their shotguns in the hall with no small amount of noise or drunken giggling. Genevieve and Gregory, enjoying their newfound college experiences, tended to stay out late, leaving the run of the house to Earl and Cecil on most nights.

The boys lay together on Earl's bed. Gregory had recently taken over the study as his own bedroom, now that he was arguably an adult and wanted his own space, but the habit of sharing the bottom bunk was long ingrained and there seemed no point in changing old customs. At thirteen, they were just beginning to discover that they no longer fit quite so comfortably on the twin mattress, but it was not yet so uncomfortable to convince them to move.

Earl couldn't deny that there was something thrilling about the forced closeness, and was ashamed to acknowledge that he had begun, on occasion, to pretend to be a more restless sleeper than he really was, just to have an excuse to shift closer to his friend, or burrow his face in against a shoulder or temple. At these times he was at once calculatingly removed and terrifically invested in the fiction. It was a curiosity that drove him, and the small rush of playacting and pretending to be asleep, but also something that squirmed endlessly back and forth between his stomach and his ribs, sometimes working high into his throat or low into his groin.

Once or twice he'd woken to discover an arm thrown across his own torso, or an ankle tangled against his. Each of these times Cecil had been breathing deeply, evenly, and while he couldn't confirm his suspicions either way, it seemed that these movements were probably due to genuine tossing and turning, unlike his own. He didn't bother waking Cecil when this happened, only went as still as possible to prevent the other boy from noticing that his own breath had become suddenly, painfully shallow and uneven.

Tonight, though, they both lay on their backs, separated by a small space the bed still afforded them, awake and staring at the bent slats of the bunk above, breathing normally and acting without pretense.

“Do you ever think about fate?” Earl asks.

“All the time,” Cecil replies, his tone serious and weighty. “My name is on a tablet, you know, down at City Hall. I mean, I kind of wonder... is that fate? Is that really what I'm meant to do? Or is that, like, oh, a suggestion, a kind a hint?”

“But you _want_ to be a radio broadcaster, don't you?” Earl rolls just his neck, in order to see Cecil's expression, still fixed upward, eyes gazing at something past what is really there.

“More that anything!” Cecil says, voice full of passion. “Of course I do. But is that because it's foretold, or because I really want to? Would I want to if it hadn't been ordained? Or what if it had, but I'd never known? I've gone my whole life assuming that's what I meant to do, but how do I know if it really is?”

Earl returns his own eyes to the knotholes and the woodgrain above him. “I have no idea what's going to happen to me. I mean, I have some ideas, and some things that I'd _like_ to happen, I guess, but there's no way of telling for sure. Do you think that would be better? Or worse? Not knowing anything, I mean.”

There's a silence while Cecil ponders that, the only sound the distant, familiar beating of helicopter rotors in the thin night air.

“I don't know,” he finally admits. “I've never had the luxury of not knowing what was going to happen, at least a little. Or the fear. I guess you know a little, too, though – I mean, we all know we're going to die, eventually. That's something.”

“Yeah, eventually. But I don't know how, or when. Do you? I mean, know when or how you're going to?”

“No,” Cecil sighs. “I don't know that either. I think it would be comforting, though, knowing. Knowing that it's so completely out of your control that there is nothing – absolutely nothing at all – that you could do to affect the outcome. It might be liberating.” He thinks for a beat before adding, “I think I'd like to be eaten by a snake, maybe. If I got to choose.”

“I'm not so sure,” Earl says. “Not being able to do anything at all sounds pretty terrible. Just going along with fate... I mean, what if what fate has planned totally sucks?”

At that, Cecil laughs and rolls over onto his stomach, knees and elbows knocking against Earl as he does so. “I'm pretty sure fate does suck, no matter what it is or whether we know it or not,” he says, finally settling in more comfortably. “But I guess we can't really do much about it but accept it, right?” 

Earl has a sudden, intense urge to run a hand down Cecil's back, or through his hair, or to twine their fingers together. But he fights the feeling, squashes it down inside of himself, and makes only a non-committal noise in response.

 

**xviii. The Hole in the Vacant Lot Out Back of the Ralph's, Night Vale – 2013**

The Apache Tracker, as he is known and wishes to be known, disappears for a time. Of course, even in Night Vale matter is neither created nor destroyed just... shuffled off to somewhere different. So he doesn't really disappear so much as relocate to where nobody will find him.

The Man in the Tan Jacket has led him here, to the hole in the vacant lot out back of the Ralph's, and instructed him to descend. The Apache Tracker isn't sure whether he trusts this man, but the things he has been told, well, he may not have a lot of choice.

The hole is much deeper than he expected. From above it looks like a large and municipally-ignored paving problem, perhaps the beginning of a construction project that will never be completed. But as he clambers down and follows the twisting walls, he begins to realize there is something more down here: a vast network of tunnels and caverns, hiding beneath the very feet of Night Vale.

Some of the passages are blocked by crates, or iron doors, or piles of bones. Many look disused and abandoned. Others are filled with hooded figures, and he slides his eyes past those, not daring to look directly at them. Several figures appeared to be pushing cards of railing ties, laying down tracks along the rocky floor deep in the ground.

There are machines here, strange and wondrous contraptions. Some are tall and sleek, cylindrical and humming faintly. Some are boxy and glass-paneled, revealing insides full of twisted wires and levers. One appears to be constructed primarily of PVC piping and reflective heat blankets, sprouting tubes and canisters, and held together by zip ties and duct tape.

The man in the tan jacket shows him these machines, shows him how they are used, and shows him how to use them. The man shows him papers, pulled from a briefcase full of flies and files. The man shows him what the future may bring, and shows him what must be done to prevent it.

They work, the two of them. Diligently. There are others, sometimes, too, in that place under the earth, under the knowledge of Night Vale above, but the Apache Tracker does not interact with them. More important things must be accomplished, some of them strange, many of them wondrous.

Accidents happen, and things that are not accidental, but that are difficult. Things change. He changes. He knows what is coming, he has access to incredible power and technology, but can not for the life of him find a goddamn Russian-English dictionary.

He gathers evidence, he shows Mayor Winchell. He does his best to warn the city.

It may not be enough.

 

**iv. A Place Under the Earth, Desert Bluffs – 1987**

Henry has seen what will become of Desert Bluffs, what the Strex Corporation will become, what it will do. He has seen the way it will devour his beloved city, how it will make him outdated, how it will make humanity all but obsolete. He has seen what will become of belief in a smiling god, and it is fearful.

The man in the tan jacket – the man with the features and the hair and the skin – he has shown Henry what can be done, what little can be done to avert this catastrophe. The man has given him a part to play, a heroic role to be filled, and Henry is up for the task.

He will set his course, he will be the star of this story, and he will change his stars. He will blaze a trail of glory and he will change the past, the future, and everything in between. He with travel into uncharted territory and return victorious.

 

**v-ii. The Palmer House – 1995**  

Cecil is 15 years old. He is standing in front of a mirror, narrating his thoughts into the tape recorder he has been given in order to practice, to prepare, for the role he one day hopes to fill. He is meant for something; he is certain of it.

There is something, something taking hold of him, something that is meant _for him_ , rather than the other way around. It is choking him, no words are coming out. The words that he wants to fill his life with, to fill this city with, are being silenced by the elongated, glowing, black _something_ that has him.

But there is something else there, too. Someone else.

He imagines – he lets himself imagine – that he sees a flash of silver epaulets, of indescribable, shimmering buttons. He imagines a struggle, he imagines that somebody is fighting back the darkness, but it is too late. 

His mother and brother request that his bloated and bruised body be cremated, and he is thrown to the winds, his very self scattered through the air across Night Vale as he had always hoped, though in perhaps a different way than he had imagined. 

 

**xx. Oak Trail, Night Vale – 2013**

Larry Leroy is standing by the toolshed, leaning against the wall of the wooden structure and wiping his brow with a handkerchief, when a man in a tan jacket approaches him.

“Well, hello there, son, what can I do for you?” he asks congenially, tucking his handkerchief back into his overalls.

“I was wondering about the sunlight,” the man says, “And whether there has been any lately.”

Larry scratches at his beard, which he is growing out and, meanwhile, itches like hell much of the time. He feels, however, that beard-scratching is a dignified and thoughtful action, and so he indulges it.

“Who did you say you were, son?”

The man squints his eyes just slightly, before his face relaxes into a smile as if to say, _Ah, yes, I can trust you_ , or perhaps, _You will never remember, anyway_.

“Everett,” the man in the tan jacket says. “My name is Doctor Everett Green. I'm looking for information about the sunrises and sunsets, and whether there has been anything... usual about them lately. About how much sun you've been getting.”

Everett does not extend his hand to shake, which Larry thinks is somewhat rude, but what can be done about young people these days? Not much, he thinks, not much. He scratches his beard again.

“Well,” he says, slowly, “There's been sun. It's shined. Except for the days when it hasn't, just a couple 'a days, you understand. But John Peters – you know, the farmer? – his invisible corn seems to be doin' alright. The spider commune that lives behind the outhouse, though, they were all in a tizzy about it, 'course they're always in a tizzy 'bout somethin', ain't they.”

Everett nods slowly, “Go on.” He is taking notes on a small pad of paper drawn from his jacket pocket. Larry side-eyes the pen in his hand, but says nothing about it. He's no snitch and, hell, he doesn't know this man from Adam, who is he to judge?

“There were loud sunsets, last year some time, out in Old Town. Really riled some people up. Too much vinegar in some people, you know, just have to fight about something. Started happening up around here, lately, too, I guess, sunrises getting real noisy, like” he added, huffily, “Doesn't bother _me_ , though. Got a stronger constitution that that.”

“Hmm,” Everett says, making one last note and tucking his paper and pen back into his pocket. “That's what I suspected. Thank you very much for your time, Mr. Leroy.” Larry is fairly certain that he hasn't given this young whippersnapper his name, but he supposes that he _is_ well-known around town.

After the man in the tan jacket has gone – Larry doesn't remember seeing him go, but he's not here, so he must have gone – something odd near the car lot catches his eye. There's a streak of black in the sky over Josie's place. 

That Cecil fellow on the radio will want to know about this.

 

**xvi. The Dog Park, Night Vale – 2013**

Everett has taken a liking to Dana, the plucky young reporter from Night Vale Community Radio. She is feisty and capable. She is wary and aware of the horrors around her, but not afraid. Perhaps she should be, but perhaps it is for the best that she is not.

The hooded figures control the dog park, as they control most of Night Vale, but he has an understanding with them. They understand each other. They allow him access, and he allows Dana access to his secrets.

He urges her to leave, to find a way out. She is uncertain at first, suspicious and disbelieving, but after time, he wins her trust. He has plenty of time. He has nothing but time.

He tells her where to go, what to do. She won't remember, for which he feels a pang of sadness – he has grown to enjoy her company on his visits, which she never considers to be anything but linear. He instructs her to the house, to the door, to the passageways between times and spaces that shine through the thin fabric of reality that comprises this town.

“Go,” he tells her. “There's no time like the present.”

“Wait, aren't you coming with me?” she asks. 

The man in the tan jacket turns to the black monolith in the center of the dog park. “Not right now,” he says, “But I'll see you on the other side.”

 

**xvii. The Hole in the Vacant Lot Out Back of the Ralph's, Night Vale – 2013**

The is very little time and absolutely no purpose to questioning the way things have turned out. The Eternal Scout induction ceremony is nigh, and in a strange act of indignity the last thing Earl Harlan is asked to do before it begins is discuss his feelings with Cecil Palmer. His feelings on the ceremony, ostensibly.

They had been best friends, once upon a time, Earl and Cecil. Inseparable until time and life and perhaps fate, too, did separate them. All of these things, and the dawning realization that they wanted different things in their short and meaningless lives – not just different careers and different hobbies, but different concepts of what it means to be fulfilled as a human being.

Being dragged by the mute children into the hole in the vacant lot out back of the Ralph's was oddly relaxing. They are not trying to kill him, which is more than can be said for most creatures in Night Vale, in any case.

Earl had always liked children. He enjoyed opening their minds to the wonders of the world, to the joys of Scouting, to the limitless possibilities of thought. He developed educational exhibits for the Children's Science Center during the day, and led scouts in the evenings and weekends. Children were the future, the only way to be sure of making an impact on the world that would outlive oneself.

Cecil saw things rather differently, of course. He saw children – even the regular kind, not the mute messenger children who seemed beholden to the wills of the City Council or the hooded figures – as irresponsible. Not the children themselves, but the mere existence of them. He would surely see Earl's fate as a poetic justice for the way he had lived his life, trying in vain to impress upon the next generation the necessity of preparedness and fear of the unknown. At least Earl wouldn't be around to hear the “I told you so”.

Before the ceremony, Earl had followed the Boy Scouts of America preparation instructions to the letter, telling those around him that he was planning on “going on a long trip” to “somewhere” and would not be back for quite a while. He did not know to where or what end this trip would take him, although he had assumed death. First, it seemed, it would take him underground. 

When the children released him, he stood, brushing dirt from his pants, and came face to... face? with a man. A man he did not recognize, yet was somehow familiar. A man wearing a tan jacket.

 

**xii. Carlos' House, Night Vale – 2013**

Everett stands outside the door. He does not raise his nimble hands to knock. He simply waits. There is a movement from the window, a slight shuttering of the blinds. With a predatory snap of his head, Everett turns and, for a brief second, catches Carlos' eye.

A moment later he opens the door. It is not locked.

Carlos is behind his couch, trying to put space and furniture between them. “What do you want?” he demands, brandishing his cell phone like a weapon.

“I just want to show you something,” the man in the tan jacket says soothingly. “Just papers. Here, in my case.”

Slowly, so as not to startle the scientist even more, he sets down his case and opens it. A hazy mass of buzzing wings and bodies rises from it, but Everett pays it no mind and digs, instead, for a sheaf of papers.

He spreads them on the coffee table, “These may be of interest to you.”

Carlos edges hesitantly forward, craning his neck for a better view. They appear to be schematics, maps, diagrams, flowcharts, spreadsheets – all the ways to rationalize the irrationality that is reality.

“What are these?” he asks, allowing his curiosity to draw him out from behind the sofa to peer at the papers, hesitant at first, and then greedily.

Everett says nothing, giving Carlos space to make his own assumptions and deductions. It only takes a minute before dark eyebrows are shooting up to meet perfect hairline.

“This is... this is time travel. These charts, this data – this is the future?” he asks, full of awe and wonder. “But if this is the future it means... it _would_ mean....”

“There are things you need to know,” Everett says. “You will not remember them after I leave, but you must hear them, and know them to be true, even if you do not know why you know.”

Carlos is suspicious once more. “How do I know what you say is for real? That I can trust you?”

“Because,” the man in the tan jacket says simply, “You _already_ know that it is. You've seen it, recorded it, analyzed it. The earthquakes, the time slips, the temporal instability here. But there is more you have to do if you want this place to survive, if you want to survive.”

Carlos is still pouring over the papers from the briefcase, trying to will them into his memory, even though they slip from his mind even as he looks away from them. “What?” he asks, distracted. “What are you asking me to do, exactly?”

“The first and most important thing,” Everett says, “is you must get together with the radio host.”

“Cecil? But I just got off the phone with him,” Carlos frowns, confused. “He knows about the tremors and the time and the imaginary houses, all of it. I've been updating him since I arrived here. He makes a point of telling his listeners. He's usually quite good about it.”

“No, not just to talk to him,” the man clarifies, and Carlos thinks he detects a note of frustration below the surface, although he immediately forgets it. “Call him again, meet with him. _In person_.”

“But why?” Carlos asks, flipping through the files once more, distracted. “Can I copy these files? For my records? I can just fax them to the station, that would–”

“No!” Everett pulls the papers from his hands and shoves them roughly back in the briefcase. “Ugh, just call him, okay? Just remember that: you have to call Cecil to talk in person. It is vitally important for the future safety of Night Vale. Alright? Got it? _Call Cecil Palmer._ ” 

And with that, the man took his leather case and exited the front door with a slam.

Carlos blinked a few times, some part of him trying to cling to what just happened, but it already slipping away as if a dream from a long-ago, far-off time.

Time, he thinks, Right. The clocks. There was something important about time, about time being wrong somehow. He'd talk to Cecil about the clocks, Cecil would help him get the word out. He'd meet with Cecil.

 

**v-iii. The Palmer House – 1995**

Cecil is 15 years old. It is his deepest, least-secret desire that one day he will be the voice of Night Vale Community Radio. It is a prophetic hope, but also a foolish one: nobody retires from radio, after all, and the current evening broadcast anchor, Leonard, has not only held the position for nigh-on three decades, but also has an astounding assortment of survival skills that make it unlikely that he will be going anywhere any time soon.

The Palmer house is full of tapes and recordings. The hallways are piled high with cassettes, 8-tracks, records, and even an assortment of wax cylinders. Player piano rolls, Casio keyboards and reel-to-reels litter the landscape of the winding passageways. Cecil collects these things obsessively, obsessed with sound, completely enamored with recording and reporting the things that happen, and then un-happen, around him.

He has begged, pleaded, for a tape recorder of his own, for a microphone, or – in his wild fantasies – a proper sound booth set-up. “But,” his mother says, “these things can not come to pass, not yet. Not yet, my child.”

He tried suggesting an internship at the radio station, once, which transformed his mother's vacant stare into paroxysms of howling and weeping, and sent her into hiding for two days. He did not ask again.

And so he waits. His mother is not bothered by the records he listens to, and as long as he keeps the volume reasonable, the Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Their Home does not mind, either. There is nobody else around, and so he is free to do as he pleases, and he whiles away hours daydreaming of what is yet to come, of what may someday be.

He finds a strange button, indescribable and beautifully shimmering, in the hall one day, beside one of the covered mirrors. All the mirrors are covered. All the mirrors are always covered. His mother insists on it, and does not explain. Sometimes Cecil dreams that there is something lurking in his reflection, something sinister and dark, something that does not want him to be here, any _here_ at all. Sometimes he dreams in that color that defies vocabulary. But often he does not. Usually he does not.

He does not dwell on these rare times, because they are not real. They are a strange fantasy, like mountains, or the moon landing. 

Some things are different, now, than they were. Not so different at first, but more different later. Different from _what_ , though, he cannot be sure.

 

**xiii. Somewhere in the Desert Outside of Night Vale – 2013**

Henry has come this far, but he has no way to go back. But that won't prevent him from looking. He knows there was a way... once upon a time... somewhere out in the desert, under the sands, deep below the surface.

He drives his expensive truck out past the edge of town and begins to dig in the cool of night. Everything is barren and flat; there is no indicator of where the long, metal plate that shrouds his ticket home might be. Everything is sand, even and featureless.

There is a sound, a sound of spines clinking against one another, and then a pair of wide, guileless eyes peering down at him from a neighboring cactus.

“Hello,” a voice calls sweetly through the night air, like the bloom of a succulent in this arid wasteland. “What are you doing?”

He is struck by her appearance in this otherwise barren place, smooth skin glowing like polished rock in the moonlight. She is unexpected and dazzling.

“Digging for a time machine,” he says, without thinking, and then stumbles on his own tongue and toes as he realizes what he's done.

She giggles in response and smiles. “What's your name?”

“I'm nobody. I'm just a traveler,” he says, suddenly bashful in her presence. “From a long way off, looking for a way back home. Or perhaps a beautiful woman, to help me make a new home. Who might you be?”

“Why me?” the woman says, coy. “Why, I'm only the _third_ most-beautiful woman in Night Vale.” 

“Really? You're the most beautiful woman _I've_ ever seen,” he tells her, and offers her a hand, to lead her down from her cactus.

 

**xv. Somewhere in Night Vale – 2013**

Champ is born without a father. Perhaps he had a father once, but that man no longer exists.

Some day somebody will tell him, kindly, “you look like him,” although they will not remember what he looks like.

“He was a stranger here, from somewhere else, another time and place,” they will add, wistful, confused.

“Here,” they will say, pressing several indescribable buttons into his hands. “These were found the day you were born. There was once a hole, in a vacant lot, out back of the Ralph's. These were found there, after the hooded figures cleared. They're probably nothing, but they might be nothing to do with you.” 

Someday these things may happen, but for now Champ is only a small, healthy baby, with a beautiful and terrible beard.

 

**i. City Hall, Night Vale – Once Upon a Time**

Dr. Everett Green examines the stone tablet in his hands. That sculpture woman from the community college really knows her stuff, he thinks. He'd seen her monument to the Apache Tracker, he knew she would be more than capable of making something that would last the centuries.

He tucks the tablet back into his briefcase and pulls his jacket closed against the winds of the place that has only just begun to be called Night Vale. It whips over his machine, already partially covered by the every-transitory desert sands. It will be buried entirely soon enough.  


He wishes, fervently, that he could get back to that place beneath the Earth and outside of time that is his home, the place where they have been forced into after the things which are to come, but have found solace in. Perhaps, though... perhaps if he accomplishes what he has set out to do, that place will never have existed, will never have to exist, because he will have saved them all before they needed saving, before anybody knew what was to come.

City Hall is a strange and monstrous structure, all stairs and empty plinths and empty, gaping windows that don't at all suit the architecture of the time. But, then again, who is he to judge what time is the right one for anything?

He makes his way to the archives, hoping and dreading in equal measure that he will be discovered, but nobody and nothing is forthcoming. He places the tablet with the others, though there are not many here, yet. 

Some day some intern will be sent here to catalog items and some day this tablet will be entered into official record, without knowledge of how it arrived or why. All that will be known is that, deep in the bowels of the Night Vale City Hall, there is a proclamation, a prophecy, that may in some roundabout way save them all:

_Cecil Gershwin Palmer, Night Vale Community Radio Host_

**Author's Note:**

> Would you like to see my Steve-level conspiracy theories? And incessant callbacks to episodes? No? Well, here, have them anyway, ALL AT ONCE. 
> 
> Please feel free to share whatever thoughts you may have on the matter. Or other matters. Or matter as an essential building block of the universe.
> 
> I fully expect all of this to be rendered obsolete by near-future episodes, but, hey -- alternate time stream, I can deal with that.


End file.
